


Winning

by cruisedirector



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Disguise, F/M, Fucking, Lust, Occupation of Bajor, Older Characters, Older Woman, Power Play, Prophets, Religion, Scheming, pah-wraiths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-12-01
Updated: 2002-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 10:06:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Knowing her lover's true identity doesn't interfere with the Kai's ambitions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winning

**Author's Note:**

> The Spiritual Leader of Bajor made me write this nasty little story. For some reason she really wanted to get it on with "Anjohl" after finding out that he was Dukat, and who am I to tell the Kai what she can or can't do? I promise to try not to stray from the path of the Prophets again.

Familiar. She knew it the moment he walked into her rooms on the station. Strange she didn't recognize him right away -- all too willing to accept that the Prophets had sent him, and all too joyful. No simple farmer could have a pah like his. Stronger than Jaro Essa, stronger than Bareil Antos, stronger perhaps than the Emissary. Stronger perhaps than herself. He made her burn until she thought she must be made of light to survive such a flame.

She very nearly felt love for the Prophets for sending him to her. For the man, too, she very nearly felt love...but it has never been for him. It was always for herself. From the moment he came into her life, she felt that he was hers.

His eyes scald her now her from across the room, stinging like the heat which emanates from the smoldering Book of the Pah-Wraiths. She raises her head to look at her nemesis. Solbor's blood still stains his hands -- blood she shed in her lover's name and her own. She regrets having been the agent of Solbor's death, but she does not regret the cause. Serving the Pah-Wraiths has made her strong, as she has not been since she worked to resist this man and the people he commanded years before.

This man -- her nemesis, her savior. His name hovers on the tip of her tongue, the flavor of its syllables as illicit as the pleasure of reading the book of Kosst Amojin. "Dukat," she voices carefully, so the Ranjins beyond the locked door cannot hear. Her throat closes over as the breath catches in her chest. Giving voice to that word has the same effect on her body as Solbor's blood had on the manuscript: she catches fire.

"Adami," her lover murmurs, the only man to call her by name in nearly a decade. When she first spoke it, he told her that her name was beautiful -- giving her the courage to move beyond talk of their shared destiny and invite him to her bed. That night he whispered her name, cried it, gasped it, over and over until she nearly forgot how much she'd liked hearing him call her "my Kai."

He knows what she wants. He has always known what she wanted -- something she attributed at first to the Prophets, then the Pah-Wraiths, but now that she knows his real identity, she suspects it is a skill all his own. She had heard of Dukat's Bajoran mistresses, reportedly dozens of them...all willingly sharing a bed with the man who had enslaved them. Collaborators. How could he have wanted such weak creatures? Women with no desires beyond soft clothes and safe children, no ambitions. No hunger like that which she shares with him. Perhaps he kept them out of pride instead of desire.

But this man is a creature of desire. She knows he has not been pretending with her: he burns for Her Eminence as she does for him, she can feel it. Her title and position are undoubtedly part of the thrill, but she assumed that even before she knew who he really was. To most, the Kai is nearly as untouchable as the book of Kosst Amojin. It is rare for visitors even to clasp her hands, as this man did in feigned passion for saving Anjohl Tanon's life.

Yet her lover's ardor did not arise entirely from his private quest for power -- no more so than for her. She saw the look in his eyes when she denounced the Prophets, after sharing with him the secret emptiness she hid from everyone. He understood. And she saw his admiration when she murdered Solbor to protect them both. Kindred spirit. Dukat did not expect that of her. He likes it. She basks in the heat from him as he approaches.

"Now," she pleads, or demands, tearing the crown of the Kai from her head. Her hair is still beautiful, though a Vedek's hood has hidden it for most of her life. She would not have guessed her features could attract Dukat -- a man who surrounded himself with chiseled young Bajoran women -- yet when he made love to her for the first time, he praised her beauty, pressing reverent kisses over her flesh. She had not had a lover since Jaro, had not really expected another in her lifetime. Aging Vedeks and simpering politicians surround her always. Nobody with power to fuel her own.

Dukat's power is dangerous, will have to be stopped, soon...but not yet. It still serves her. He still serves her. His hands tug at the vestments of her role, freeing her from the trappings of the Prophets and himself from borrowed Bajoran clothes. She no longer needs to pretend that theirs is a spiritual bond in the name of Prophets or Pah-Wraiths. Now they are only the Kai and the Gul, architects of the Bajor that will be.

"Fuck me, Dukat," she commands. His eyes widen, and a grin distorts his features. She should have recognized the Cardassian at once from that rapacious smile. It is her wish, but it will be his pleasure.

Despite his efforts to make her happy, "Anjohl" has never been a selfless lover. Even the first time, he took her greedily -- with surprising speed for a man of his age, and impressive stamina. She let him see her discomfort, and he tried to adjust, but in the end his desire overwhelmed them both. Afterwards he kissed away the sting, then fell asleep with his head pillowed on her belly. She had trouble walking the next morning; her attendant Ranjins noticed. Bajoran religious leaders are not prudes, as humans seem to expect based on their own historical customs, but the Kai is expected to be above the yearnings of her own flesh, concentrating on the will of the Prophets.

Perhaps if the Prophets ever gave her a taste of the grace they granted the Emissary, she might have been able to concentrate on non-corporeal ecstasies. But they never bothered with her at all -- not even when she became the spiritual leader of their people. Dukat's fervent hunger fed her own pangs. How did he guess that slavish adoration would not fulfill her needs? Does the Cardassian recognize himself in her, to realize his own pleasure will satisfy her more than mere obedience?

"Adami," he moans again, lifting her onto her desk beside the book of Kosst Amojin. Her fingers splay across the occult pages as he spreads her thighs and impales her, quickly as she stabbed Solbor when the Ranjin tried to flee. The ancient paper wrinkles but does not tear under her hand.

Dukat fucks with his eyes open, and prefers the lights on. She felt shy when they first came together, but found pleasure in his gaze, his obvious delight at her response to him. In the mornings, when she is stiff and sore, he massages and teases her with such patient determination that her body sometimes surprises her, and he watches with a smile of satisfaction. She knows Jaro often pretended to be with someone else, clenching his eyes shut against her face; he never spoke her name in bed. At first she suspected that he loved another, but in the end she realized he preferred fantasies -- unreal women who could not challenge his own power. Dukat has no such insecurities. He knows his power. He is so confident in it that he prefers her to keep her own.

Dark fire surges from the burning point where they meet. Soon, it will to have to stop. Soon -- tomorrow -- she will not allow him to touch her like this. Not with the blood of her people on his hands, not when she doesn't yet know what he is after. If he seeks the destruction of Bajor, as the ancient prophesies foretell, he would have an easier path remaining among his own people, fighting at the side of the Dominion. Why go to the trouble to change his face, to come to her as a Bajoran, to win her to the cause of the Pah-Wraiths?

Only she can learn what Kosst Amojin requires. He needs her. Gul Dukat needs the Kai -- the woman who has resisted the Federation as she once resisted the Occupation. The irony! She resisted Dukat as well when he demanded the forbidden book, but now she knows the tome has been waiting for her. Centuries of wisdom meant for her eyes alone. She must know what Dukat expects. Whether he intends to share her power or try to usurp it for himself. He might be her people's conqueror, but this time, she is stronger. The thought makes her molten.

Her lover shouts, bending her backwards so that her hair spills over the far side of the desk and their hands clutch together on the pages of the fateful text. Dukat might believe he can bend her to his will, but his acts of possession only feed her power. A new Bajor will be born of this spawning, a world which will hail her as its ruler. She imagines the Vedeks coming in to find their spiritual leader coupling with the head of the Occupation atop the book of evil -- oh, the horror on their impotent faces! She pictures invading fleets crushed in the wormhole like the Dominion, the Pah-Wraiths bursting from the Fire-Caves to reclaim the Celestial Temple from the false Prophets. She hears Dukat's voice calling out her name. She screams as flames engulf her from her loins, from the book of Kosst Amojin, from the blood on Dukat's hands and on her own.

She is the Chosen One -- she believes that now. If the Pah-Wraiths rather than the Prophets have elected her, then the Kai will follow the path they offer. She has told Dukat that she is happier than she has ever been, and she is. The Pah-Wraiths have sent him to help her to lead Bajor to its restoration, and she will. Dukat will have to be taught to know his place, but once he atones for his sins -- once he recognizes that he can never share her power -- she sees no reason why he should not continue to serve her and the reborn world which they will both help to shape. He has guided her to this place. The fires will purge them both of the past. Power and love will be hers at last.

This time, she will win.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite my promise in the headnote, I wrote two sort-of follow-ups to this, ["Darkness"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/18968) (from Dukat's perspective) and ["New Robes"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/18974) (in which the Kai gets exactly the afterlife she deserves).


End file.
